


Mould, Decay, Rot

by charlotte123456789



Series: Harry Potter One-Shots [54]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Azkaban, Choices, Decay, Family, Fate & Destiny, Life - Freeform, Mould - Freeform, Poor Life Choices, Saddness, Symbolism, rot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotte123456789/pseuds/charlotte123456789
Summary: They all lay abandoned on the table. Such poetic justice.
Series: Harry Potter One-Shots [54]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2157993
Kudos: 1





	Mould, Decay, Rot

The coffee mug lies discarded on the table.

It has been there for months; the old coffee inside is now putrid with mould climbing up the insides, poisoning milk and sugar that had once made it sweet.

The mug lies discarded just like everything else on the table.

Next to the mug is a clearly abandoned glass of orange juice, soured, with sediment resting at the bottom.

It’s just as old as the coffee.

Then, the remains of what must have once been a hearty breakfast; now mould covers the plate, indistinguishable.

Eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes. You would have guessed it was a slow, happy morning. The kind of morning with time to eat and drink with pleasure.

You would have been wrong.

The breakfast was never finished, that is clear. The orange juice had only been half drunk. The coffee had never been touched.

It was now all covered in mould.

_ mould, decay, rot. _

You could laugh a broken cacophony at the sight — for what poetic justice it was that  _ Sirius Black’s _ home would  _ rot _ just like he did.

His former home could rot from the inside out, starting with the coffee whilst  he was left to rot in Azkaban from the outside in.

Such beautiful justice.

Yet, underneath, you could see the hidden current. You could feel the cries rising up from within you upon looking at the scene.

The coffee mug lying  _ abandoned.  _ The orange juice  _ forgotten.  _ And the meal  _ discarded. _

Just like _Harry Potter,_ his beloved Godson _._ _Abandoned_ on his aunt’s doorstep. _Forgotten_ by the wizarding world other than to briefly thank the child for getting rid of the Dark Lord, and _discarded_ now he had done his part and was no longer needed.

You can cry about what you see. You can cry and scream and shout. You can wail at the heavens until your throat becomes hoarse and the words die in your throat. You can do  _ whatever  _ you want. And you will  _ still _ be stuck with the knowledge that you can change  _ none _ of it.

For you can call it what you want; destiny, fate, chance. All of it leads to this in the end.

_ Sirius Black, _ left to rot, and  _ Harry Potter, _ abandoned.

You can’t fight destiny. You can’t sway chance. You can’t change fate.

All you can do is stare at the scene in front of you.

Of a coffee mug filled to the brim with mouldy coffee, a soured glass of orange juice and a plate of rotting food.

You can stare at it and think about how although it is putrid, it is rotting and it is foul. There is still  _ life. _

The mould spots  _ growing _ on the coffee. The  _ movements _ within the glass of orange juice. And the fungi  _ emerging _ from the plate.

You can look at it. You can look at all the rot and  _ decay.  _ You can see the  _ dirty _ truth. You can choose to see death.

But if you look just a  _ bit  _ deeper, hidden within you can see the new life  _ flourishing. _

You have to  _ hope _ that it’s flourishing.

Because without that hope, then all it is will be a putrid coffee cup, a sour orange juice and a rotting plate of food.

And you don’t want that to be the symbolism for  _ Harry Potter’s  _ future.

You don’t want the abject misery permeating the room to be the final outcome of his future. 

Because that would be worse than your fate in Azkaban knowing that in the process of dooming your own life, that you had doomed your innocent Godson to it as well.


End file.
